Sunday, February 5, 2017

The Harvesting (Book One) by Melanie Karsak

Synopsis via Amazon:

It's all fun and games until someone ends up undead.Layla Petrovich has spent her whole life running away from her hometown of Hamletville. Raised by the town's medium, and dubbed the "weird" girl for her fascination with swords, the last thing Layla wants is to go home. But when she receives a desperate call to return just as a mysterious outbreak sweeps the country, Layla's instincts urge her to go. Good thing, because the dead are rising.Layla, however, isn't entirely on her own. With her psychic powers growing, surely everything will turn out okay, right? Not so fast. Just when Layla believes she might survive the apocalypse, a sinister and ancient force rises from the shadows to finish mankind for good.Because the truth is, we were never alone in this world.
I happened upon this book on BookBub.com. The synopsis sounded so intriguing that I jumped it to the top of my TBR list. Well, the synopsis did it justice! I finished it in two days. I would have finished it in one day, but frustratingly I had to work. I really hate when work gets in the way of my reading 😉.
I really liked the fact that her background portion of the story did not last three or four chapters. It was pretty much covered in half a chapter.
Miss Karsak got right into the nitty gritty action. She didn't create a lot of "fluff" just to increase her word count. Everything in the story is relevant, interesting, and designed to keep you reading. Each character is well developed. She knows just how to describe them to elicit the exact emotion she wants out of you.
I really enjoyed that she developed Layla as a badass, strong female. She steps into the leadership role as easily as a greased pig slips through a child's arms. Not only that, she is accepted as the leader without question by the majority of the survivors in her hometown.
Layla's grandmother is a character that you can't help but love, admire, and get tickled by. She is a strong, straight forward, no nonsense, well loved woman, Then there is Ian. How do I describe Ian without adding spoilers? He will take you through a number of emotions, some driven by Layla, some driven by Grandma, and some driven by your own opinion of him. Then there is Jamie, Ian's brother. He is lovable from his first introduction. While these four are not the sum total of the characters, they are what I consider the lead characters.
The action is well thought out and added to the story as a natural progression of the story. It isn't used to add chapters, fill awkward pauses, or bridge story lines that don't mesh.
This is not a typical zombie story. It isn't like reading "the Walking Dead". It is fresh and thought provoking, exciting and emotional, sweet and sassy, intelligent and groundbreaking, And the plot twist, well let me just say you will never see it coming!!
I can't wait to read the rest of the series. I want to know what happens to Layla and her "family".
If you like horror, paranormal, or apocalyptic reads, you will definitely want to read this series.